Helium
Explained: Helium Hard Drives
While helium hard drives are not exactly designed to float in air, helium’s buoyant properties make it useful in storing more data in the same form factor. This is helium hard drives, explained. What is a helium hard drive? A helium hard drive is a hard disk drive (HDD) with an internal enclosure that is […]
August 29, 2023 • 3 min read Technology
The Race to Seal Helium HDDs
Long thought impossible, sealing helium has been one of the greatest breakthroughs for high-capacity hard drives.
April 7, 2021 • 6 min read Products
Power to the Data Center: Hero or Villain?
Data centers are challenged with storing massive amounts of data while managing power costs and minimizing their impact on the environment.
March 24, 2021 • 6 min read Data
Three Technologies that Make HDD Magic
More bits, more tracks, more disks — this is how we made magic with our new 18TB and 20TB HDDs.
July 8, 2020 • 6 min read Data
What Does Helium Have to Do with the Black Hole Image?
In 2015, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project shared they would be using our (then HGST branded) Ultrastar® HelioSeal® hard disk drives (HDDs) to store the captured imaging data for the supermassive black hole.
April 11, 2019 • 5 min read Data
What is Symbiotics Design™?
The Symbiotics Design™ approach is an integrated approach to our complete technology portfolio, allowing us to create increasingly specialized environments for data to thrive, whether it’s the immediate results from Fast Data or the breakthrough insights and precision from Big Data. Our products and solutions are purpose-built, tuned and optimized for a full range of data-centric applications.
June 28, 2018 • 4 min read Data
Foundational Technologies to Achieve Growth in $/TB Value for Capacity HDD
Helium-sealed technology is just one of three essential pillars that support higher track density. “We have made deliberate and substantial investments in both Damascene and micro-actuation for the past five-plus years to push the limits of areal density.” — Brendan Collins Western Digital has existing technologies that provide the foundation to support increased TPI. The […]
October 11, 2017 • 5 min read Data
Pushing Data Center Capacity to New Heights with the Ultrastar Hs14
How we implemented Host Managed SMR with helium technology to provide industry leading 14TB* hard disk drives!
October 3, 2017 • 3 min read Data
Our Helium-Sealed Technology Awarded Prestigious JSME Medal and on Display in Tokyo Museum
Our helium-sealed technology has proved to be fundamental in developing high capacity hard disk drives. With more than 18 million drives leveraging this award-winning technology, our engineers won the prestigious JSME medal and showcased our innovation at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.
August 10, 2017 • 4 min read Data
The Rise of Helium
A lot of things have to come together to make the impossible possible. Our helium sealed (HelioSeal™) hard drive is the perfect example of what it takes to make a breakthrough.
July 20, 2017 • 6 min read Data